Pandemic shakes up Olympic gymnastics qualification

Image Source : AP In this Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020 file photograph, a person carrying a protecting face masks to assist curb the unfold of the coronavirus walks with the Olympic rings within the background within the Odaiba part, in Tokyo.
The United States, Russia and China have been every given an additional entry to the Olympic girls’s gymnastics competitors in Tokyo on Wednesday after the coronavirus pandemic compelled a shake-up in qualifying.
The International Gymnastics Federation stated it was canceling its all-around World Cup sequence of occasions due to the pandemic.

Those occasions have been supposed to supply international locations one additional spot for the postponed Tokyo Games, serving to the highest nations to compensate after Olympic groups have been contracted from 5 athletes to 4.

FIG goes again to 2019 world championship outcomes to find out these locations. That means the United States, Russia and China get one additional girls’s spot every, and that Russia, China and Japan every obtain an additional males’s spot. All of these international locations had already certified a four-person crew for the boys’s and girls’s competitions.
Of the 4 deliberate all-around World Cup occasions, just one has taken place, in Milwaukee final 12 months. Events in Germany and Britain have been canceled, leaving the sequence beneath the minimal variety of three occasions required to be a legitimate Olympic qualifier.
“Despite the organizers’ best efforts, the reinforcement of entry bans in Europe in recent weeks has drastically reduced the ability of foreign athletes to take part in events in the continent,” FIG stated in an announcement.
Despite that setback, FIG stated it should proceed with plans to supply Olympic spots by way of different World Cup occasions specializing in the person equipment occasions and thru continental championships.